


Haunted

by interlude



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Coping Methods, Gen, Post-Deathly Hallows, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:51:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interlude/pseuds/interlude
Summary: Draco in the aftermath of the war.





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> An old fic I had laying around in my files. It ends rather abruptly because I'm posting as is.

After the battle, Hogwarts is full of both celebration and mourning – people everywhere caught between joy and grief. There are bodies everywhere, bloodied and battered and horribly still, of all ages and wearing robes of all colors; death united the four houses in a way that nothing else ever had.

 

Draco stares at the once Great Hall – cracked and broken, the enchanted sky having long since disappeared to reveal the gaping holes left in the high ceiling – and catches his breath. It is much harder to do than it should be; he focuses on breathing in and out, slowly, forcing the air down his throat, choking down what might be the beginnings of a sob.

 

It’s over, he thinks. It’s over, but the words don’t seem real – just another lie he’s whispering to himself. He’s done a lot of that lately.

 

On shuddering, trembling legs he stands, takes his mother and father’s hands, and walks from the school that has been a home, a prison, a sanctuary and an awful memory in equal measures. Now it’s a battlefield, too.

 

They return to Malfoy Manner – which fares only slightly better than Hogwarts – and do not step outside for a long time.

 

 

.

 

 

Draco goes to his father’s trial and watches him disappear to Azkaban, nothing like the powerful, unstoppable figure Draco had once believed him to be. Most of him wants to cry, fight, and beg for his father’s return, but a small part of him is relieved – no more harsh words left for the Manor, for Bella is dead and his father is gone. There aren’t much words left for the Manor of any sort; his mother is strangely silent these days, and he doesn’t feel like speaking, either.

 

His mother and he scrape by on the word of the great savior, who pleads for the two remaining Malfoys. “They saved my life,” Potter says, and that’s enough for the Wizemgamot.

 

Draco apparates to the Manor afterwards, right back into the room where the long table now sits empty. For a long moment he stares at it, picturing where each person once sat – all of them dead or in Azkaban, save his mother and himself.

 

He’s going to burn it, he decides.

 

The young man – or boy, whatever he is these days, sometimes too old for his skin, sometimes as skittish as a child – looks around the manor and tries to stick “home” on it as he once had. The word doesn’t fit anymore.

 

But, still, it’s far better than the streets full of whispering and hateful glares that say, “That’s the death eater that got away,” so he retreats into his room and hardly comes out.

 

Narcissa has as many old ghosts to deal with, alongside the loss of a husband and sister. She keeps to the other end of the manor and Draco keeps to his side and they both let the empty air stretch between them.

 

There’s no one to talk to in his room and Draco’s not sure he would talk if there were someone. He spent so much of the last year silent, with his head down, that he’s not sure he can break the habit.

 

Only two weeks after the war – and the world, depending on who you ask – ended, Draco Malfoy closes his mouth and falls silent.

 

 

 

.

 

 

Two months pass in a blur – two months since Saint Potter defeated Voldemort and saved the whole world. There is no clear recollection of what has passed since then, minus the trial and the almost-wave-goodbye to his father before he stopped himself. Draco haunts his house like a ghost, too pale skin and too white hair and too grey eyes – all washed out and colorless – matching the walls and fading out of sight.

 

At some point - when, he’s not sure - he catches sight of his arm. The black leaps out against the pale skin and white walls, glaring in his face. Iron floods his mouth, falls bitterly on his tongue as he bites at his lip and draws blood. He averts his eyes and tries to ignore it, but the black is bold and the white of his arm cannot hide it. It sits in plain sight, and burns a little, scorches his skin and shoots pain up his arm, but that may just be his imagination. Voldemort is dead, after all.

 

So he stands and nearly falls, but a conveniently placed desk catches his weight and holds him up until he finds his balance. He reaches into the drawer and pushes useless things aside until he finds what he’s looking for, pulls it out and presses it against the too-pale skin of his left arm.

 

The letter opener is cold as it rests there beside the mark. A little quiver of common sense whispers in his mind, reminds him of pain and self-preservation, but the snake stares up at him and it’s frightening and taunting and he wants it gone. It doesn’t hurt all that much when the blade breaks skin - he’s had far worse; he’s been on the other end of Aunt Bella’s wand before.

 

Something snaps. Draco cuts deeper, stabbing at the snake, scraping long pieces of flesh away. He digs deeper than he means to, until the black is all gone and he’s covered in blood. 

 

The knife slips from his fingers and he watches the blood drip out onto the white carpet, staining it red.

 

Two moths ago he saw Granger’s blood, when Aunt Bella dug a knife into her arms after she tired of wandwork, and it’s almost funny, Draco thinks. Mudblood, pureblood – it looks exactly the same.


End file.
